I’ve been trying not to neglect my stamp sets from the annual catalogue and so I was rather pleased with this card which combines sets all three of the last catalogues – Stampin’ Up! Painted Petals, Papillon Potpourri and Work of Art.
I started by stamping the swoosh from Work of Art in crumb cake on a crumb cake card stock. Then I rubbed the embossing buddy over the card and stamped the butterfly in versamark. It’s not obvious from the photo, but it’s embossed in gold. The sentiment from Painted Petals is stamped in early espresso. I had half thought of matting this in gold foil but the early espresso looked better. I decided on having a large outside crumb cake frame rather than my usual 1/4 inch frames.
I ran my first card making class on Friday night and it was an incredible amount of fun. More than it ought to be. And possibly more than should be legal. I had two friends over (schedules and illness prevented another two) and we started on our three cards around 7pm. We didn’t finish until 11pm! They weren’t overly complicated cards, but maybe the snack break for cheese and wine and coconut macaroons took longer than I thought. Or maybe we were just having too much fun.
Ramona and Bilma had never met before but there really is something about making cards together which forms bonds. Maybe it’s the slight errors in stamping. Or the laughter as you turn the card over to try again on the other side. Or maybe it’s the grin as Ramona stamps another snowman on the inside of the card and reaches for the glitter. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but it’s a wonderful thing. And I can’t wait to do another class.
We started with this card which uses the Work of Art stamp set.
We then moved onto sponging and stamping and more importantly – glitter! I had conservatively just put glitter on the line of the hill and on where the branches meet the trees. We ended up glittering (is that a verb?) the trunks and the snowman as well. Oh and Ramona’s forehead. Although at least we didn’t glue the glitter there!
After our snack break, we did embossing folders and heat embossing. Bilma is bilingual so was very happy to see that I had the Good Greetings stamp set in Spanish. It’s available this month for free if you hold a workshop or place an order over $300.
I’d encourage you to go to a stamp class if you’ve never been. It’s a far more fabulous experience than you would expect!
Thank you for the kind comments and all the likes on Facebook already after only three days!
Today’s card is a copy of the first card I made, about three months ago at the new 2014 catalogue sneak peek at my upline’s house. I’ve made it in various colours since then and tweaked the sentiment. It uses a new stamp set, Work of Art, which I initially completely overlooked but have since discovered it to be very versatile. This is another design which is easy to mass produce although the key, in my opinion (and this is my blog so it’s ALL my opinion!) is to use the stamp-a-ma-jig. This little tool is an absolute marvel and has already saved me from wonky stamping on many cards. From what I’ve read online so far, it is a feared tool or at least a neglected one. In a future post, I’ll try to demystify it and give a few tips on its use. It may even be my first video!
Details:
Base: 8.5″ by 5.5″ blackberry bliss
Mat: 4″ by 5.25″ Very Vanilla
Ink: Blackberry bliss
I took the swoosh from the Work of Art set and, using the stamp-a-ma-jig to keep everything straight, stamped it four times without re-inking. The Thank and you also come from the same set. I lined the envelope using the in colours backgrounds DSP. Although the DSP seems expensive at $21.95, you get 40 sheets of 12 by 12 each of which can line 8 envelopes so it does go a long way. The DSP has patterns in white but I find that the dots are so small that they work with the very vanilla envelopes.
Colour has such an interesting effect. Here’s the same card in different colours – and in one case, with a different font.
Strawberry slush on whisper white. The envelope is lined with paper from the All Abloom paper stack.
Perfect plum on very vanilla. Sentiment from the Sassy Salutations stamp set. I love the font but I don’t think it works so well on this card. But I do prefer the softer look of the very vanilla over the whisper white.
Marina mist on white
My favourites are the two purples on the vanilla paper. What do you think?
